


Hard to Breathe

by lellabeth



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: AKA a day ending in -y, Bitty is Too Precious, Everyone Needs A Hug, Feelings, Jack is perfect, M/M, Mama Bittle should adopt us all, Ransom is the Softest Bro, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7924021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lellabeth/pseuds/lellabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What if I don’t want to be Avery anymore?” he asked, and even as close as they were standing, he wasn’t sure it had been loud enough for her to hear.</p><p>There had been a moment of silence, and then his mother’s arms had pressed around him even more tightly. Her voice was soft, like she knew how skittish he was; how he felt like he was made of spun glass and ready to crack. “Who would you want to be instead?”</p><p>He’d bitten the inside of his cheek so hard he’d tasted blood. “Eric.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning: Bitty is trans. There’s no transphobia at all, but there may be some sensitive content regarding Bitty telling those around him.** Be safe when choosing to read. If there are any tags you think need to be added, please let me know.
> 
> Big, _big_ thanks to wlwlardo and jhscdood for checking this over for me.
> 
> I poured my heart into this story - be gentle?

Being checked always knocks the breath right out of his lungs. **  
**

It always happens in slow motion; first the sharp whistle of skates coming toward him, too close, then the gust of cold air that blows into him just before a hard, heavy body does. Jack and he have been training, but he’s suspected that Jack holds back and this proves it — the guy that slams into him feels like he’s trying to raze Bitty right into the ground. Bitty lets out a loud noise, high-pitched and keening, as he’s forced right into the plexiglass and away from the puck Shitty’s just hit his way. He hits it with a thud, further compounded by the jolt of the other player’s momentum taking him forward, right into Bitty’s back.

Then there’s a whizzing noise just above his head, and suddenly his whole body caves inward, pushed down by the heavy weight above him. He doesn’t know what frightens him more — the screams and shouts of the crowd or the crystalline rainfall of plexiglass shattering over him in a thousand broken shards.

**

The day he’d told his mother was the best of his life, until he’d come to Samwell.

“Avery, honey, your breakfast is waitin’!”

He - because Bitty had always been he, even when he was she to everyone around him - walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. On the table was oatmeal with maple syrup his Mama had made him, just the way he liked it, set on a placemat with a glass of the apple juice only he drank next to it. It had been a morning where the baggiest t-shirt he owned was still too tight, and he remembers staring at the oatmeal and the juice and having a lump the size of a rock in his throat.

“You okay, sweetheart?” his Mama asked, flitting past but pausing to rest a hand on his shoulder.

He didn’t know when he’d started crying, but by the time his mother had moved to stand in front of him, his cheeks were soaked with tears.

“Whoa, baby, whoa, it’ll be okay.”

Nothing was okay — hadn’t ever been okay, not fully. He buried his face in her hair, smelling hairspray and perfume and the slight hint of syrup. He cried so hard he didn’t think he’d ever stop.

She rocked him side to side, like she had when he’d been sick as a child. “Mama will make it better, honey,” she said, and he wanted to believe her. More than anything, he wanted to believe it.

The breath he took made his chest ache.

“What if I don’t want to be Avery anymore?” he asked, and even as close as they were standing, he wasn’t sure it had been loud enough for her to hear.

There had been a moment of silence, and then his mother’s arms had pressed around him even more tightly. Her voice was soft, like she knew how skittish he was; how he felt like he was made of spun glass and ready to crack. “Who would you want to be instead?”

He’d bitten the inside of his cheek so hard he’d tasted blood. “Eric.”

His Mama hadn’t said anything, just held him close and brought her hand to cup the back of his head. She stroked her fingers across the short strands of hair there.

“Okay,” she’d said, and he knew her well enough to hear the thread of confusion in her tone.

He hadn’t gone to school that morning. Instead they’d sat around the worn wood of the kitchen table and talked for hours; through tears, through stuttered explanations and his mother trying desperately to understand. He could tell she didn’t, but she was trying so _hard_ , even though every word he’d said about feeling like a puzzle piece bent out of shape had to have made her heart ache.

“There’s been such a sadness about you these last few months, honey,” she said. It didn’t take much for someone to realize it coincided with him being old enough to have the hard edges of his body begin to soften. “I’m so relieved you finally told me what it was.”

His fingers shook, so his Mama reached over and rested her hand over them.

“Now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I’m not the best person to be understandin’ everything you’ve told me.”

He laughed, the sound wet but there. “I’m not sure I understand it all myself, Mama.”

“Well…” She took a deep breath. “It’s sorta like a butterfly moment. Butterflies don’t get born showing themselves to the outside, but they’re always a butterfly inside it all. They just need the time to grow a little, to learn a smidge about life and take the world in. Then they’re ready to show their wings to everyone.”

“Your mama always makes sense,” she said softly, reaching forward to wipe another tear rolling down his face.

They were quiet for a while then, her hand over his, the warmth of them chasing everything else inside him away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly. “For…” Lying, maybe, but he wasn’t sure if it counted as lying. For never saying anything, but he hadn’t even had the words until recently.

“Don’t be sorry.” His mother twisted her hand until it was holding his. “ _Nothing_ could make you any less. You’re my baby, always. No matter what.”

Later on, he’d come downstairs to find his father sitting at the table with his mother, both with red-rimmed eyes, their hands clasped together.

His father cleared his throat. They stared at each other for a long, silent moment, and then his stood up and walked over to him. Coach’s arms were much stronger than his Mama’s, but they still felt like the same comforting weight as hers when they wrapped around him.

“I’m proud of you,” Coach said in his ear, and Eric melted into the hug.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling happier.

**

He hears his name being shouted and feels bodies crowding all around him. Even in the cold air of the rink, every inch of him feels too hot. Someone’s cautioning that they need to be careful not to drag him over the jagged shards lining the broken panel, but he’s too busy struggling for breath to pay much attention.

“Bits? Hey, buddy, listen to me.”

He tries to focus.

“You took a hard check, okay? We’re just trying to figure out the best way to get you away without getting you hurt.”

“Jack?” he asks, wheezing and thready.

“Yeah,” Jack replies, and his voice is wavering a little too. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It takes a few minutes before the med staff clear him being moved, and then there are too many hands all over his body, shifting him backwards over the panel and lifting him on to the stretcher that’s waiting. He sees the worried faces of all his teammates as they crowd around him, then his eyes drift shut.

Everything hurts.

The next thing he knows, he’s being lifted onto a hard table.

“We’re gonna need that shirt off to see where he’s bleeding.”

His already-tight chest seizes. “No,” he forces out, the word hoarse. “No.”

“Bitty, they need to—”

“ _No._ ”

“Can you just do a primary check of him first?” he hears Jack ask someone above him.

“We’ll start with that, but I’m concerned about the blood.”

“Understood.”

A second later, he feels the stubble on Jack’s cheek graze the tender skin of his own. “What’s going on?”

Bitty should have told him earlier. He should have said something months ago, back when all this started. He could hardly believe that Jack had wanted him back, though, and he hadn’t wanted anything to possibly ruin that. So he hadn’t told him. He was sure Jack knew something by the way Bitty tensed when Jack touched him, but Bitty had never said the words, and now… now it was too late for anything gentle.

“My sports bra,” Bitty replies quietly, slurring slightly. Jack’s cheek jolts against his. “They’re all going to see it.”

He feels Jack take a deep breath, then the warmth next to his head is gone. He feels cold in its wake. “Can we keep it to just people that need to be here?” he asks over Bitty’s body.

“Sure,” the medic replies quietly, probably already aware of the issue. Bitty doesn’t doubt Jack’s stung by that.

“You gonna leave now?” Bitty asks, hoping the pain coloring his voice masks the terror he feels.

It takes moment, but Jack’s hand is gentle when it came rests on his forehead. “No,” he replies, stroking Bitty’s hairline. “I’m not going anywhere.”

**

Ransom was the first person he’d told at Samwell, back in that golden semester of his freshman year. An aunt of his posted on Facebook about how lucky their family was to have been blessed with all girls, and Bitty had felt sick to his stomach. He knew it wasn’t malicious, that she’d probably just typed the post without even thinking about it, but he couldn’t shake the feel of isolation it gave him. Too many lonely years, spent feeling like an outsider in his own body, in skin that belonged to him but wasn’t _his_ , and now he’s finally cracked free of the shell he’s lived his whole life in.

He’d lost track of time that evening. Bitty was always meticulous about being ready, wearing a compression shirt whenever he practiced to hide his sports bra. That night, though, he hadn’t had time to change out of his binder. He knew that he shouldn’t be wearing it to work out, but Ransom had all but pushed him out of his room before Bitty could swap it out. He couldn’t think of an excuse quickly enough to be convincing, so there he was, 5 minutes into their hour-long session, feeling like he was about to pass out.

He’d breathed hard each time he came up from a squat, his lungs rattling around in his chest.

“Take a break, Bitty.”

Ransom held out his water bottle and Bitty took a long drink, gasping once he was finished. His ribs were _burning_ , the whole of his torso feeling like one giant bruise.

“You okay, man? You don’t look all that great.”

“Finding it a little hard to breathe,” Bitty replied, trying to get his heart rate down to normal.

“You’re normally only like this at the end,” Ransom said, coming over to feel the heat of Bitty’s forehead. “You don’t feel too warm. Too much pie, big guy? You been overindulging all night and got no space for air in that body of yours?”

Bitty took another drink, his arm high in the air as he held the bottle to his mouth. He felt Ransom’s fingers dig deep into his ribs, trying to find a ticklish spot. Instead his hand ended up pulling at the layers of material covering Bitty’s chest. The panic that ran through him was at once both ice and molten.

“What have you got on under there, man? No wonder you can’t breathe.”

Ransom laughed as he looked at Bitty, but his expression changed once he saw the look on Bitty’s face.

“Bitty?”

“It’s my binder.”

He saw Ransom’s head jerk back a little, his expression screwing up. “A binder? Aren’t those for…”

And then he looked at Bitty’s bottom lip, where his teeth were biting down so hard the whole of his mouth was bone-white. His gaze flitted down to Bitty’s neck, where the punch of his pulse was so strong it was visible against his thin skin. He stared at Bitty’s fists, clenched to hide the tremble.

Ransom’s eyes came back up to his. “Oh.”

Just that syllable in a hushed tone.

Nothing else.

“I’m— I’m a boy,” Bitty said, and he didn’t know who it was more directed toward. “I have…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “I have a chest but it doesn’t matter, Rans, I’m not— I’m a _boy_.”

He hated the tone of desperation that hung heavy in the ear.

When he looked back up at Ransom, the other boy’s eyes were bright, shimmering in the low light. “Of course you’re a boy,” Ransom said, his voice made strong by the conviction in his words. “You’re _Bitty_. You’re a dork who bakes us all pies and floats around the ice like he weighs less than the puck.”

Bitty knew his own eyes were shining then.

Ransom cleared his throat as he stepped forward, then clapped one big hand on Bitty’s shoulder. “Good talk, man.”

Bitty rolled his eyes, the fondness he feels in his stomach making him smile. “Good talk.”

He held a hand out to Ransom, who stared at it for a second. Panic blurred the edges of Bitty’s vision, but before he could really worry, he was yanked forward into Ransom’s chest. He smelled like sweat and cologne and acceptance and love. Ransom patted Bitty on the back once, then cleared his throat again. “You’re still my bro, you know?”

Bitty swallows hard. “I know.”

“And I can still call you the team mom?”

Bitty giggled, then, silly and lilting in a way he didn’t usually let himself be. “I’ll always be a mother hen to you troublemakers.”

Ransom leaned back, an offended look on his face. “Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be?”

Bitty bit his lip to stop another laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s the way it’s gonna be.”

Ransom held up two fingers, one pointed at each of his eyes before he directed them at Bitty. “You and me, dude. Squat off. You’ve got 5 to do whatever you need to and get down here.”

Bitty sighed like it was the biggest inconvenience of his life, but he was too full of something light to pull it off. He turned and padded out of the room, but he stopped and glanced over his shoulder over the doorway.

Ransom was wiping his eyes, his head in his hands. He glanced up and saw Bitty watching, then shooed him away with both hands.

Bitty let Ransom win the squat contest that night.

**

When Bitty wakes up, he’s staring at the off-white tiles of a hospital room ceiling. He remembers the medics saying he needed stitches and people bundling him up and out, but it was all a painkiller haze. He feels the tight pull of a gash across his stomach and the sting of other small cuts across his body. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat echoes around the room. He shifts just slightly.

There is a brush of bare skin against the itchy paper hospital gown, and his stomach twists. He tries to stay still, but now that he’s aware of it he can’t seem to ignore the sensation that every breath brings.

His arms feel like lead as he tries to lift one. Before he can, there is a strong jaw and eyes as blue as a Georgia sky right in front of him. Five months since they got together. Jack is Bitty’s first love, and the flush of it is sweeter than he can handle right now. Bitty feels like someone has scooped out everything inside him and left him empty, his bones hollow like a baby bird’s.

“I already called your parents. Your mom sounded so worried, especially when…Anyway, I thought she was going to burst when I told her what happened.”

Bitty smiles, but it’s shaky. “That’s Mama.”

“I could barely understand her, she talked so fast. She said she’ll talk to Coach and see how soon they can be here.”

“They don’t need to come.”

“I’ll let you be the one to tell her that.”

Bitty huffs a little, the fabric shifting against his chest again. He looks down at it, his cheeks burning, then looks away. He doesn’t want Jack to look, doesn’t want him to see—

Jack moves for a second, and then Bitty feels a slight weight across his collarbone. He looks down at the blanket Jack’s pulled up to cover his torso and can’t stop the tear that slides down the side of his face.

“Hey now, none of that,” Jack says gently.

Bitty can’t help it, though, and his chest heaves with a sob.

“Shh, bébé.” Jack runs his hand through Bitty’s hair, kisses the salt-sadness from his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Bitty tells him, because he _is_ , sorry for not saying anything before and for it having to come out like it did.

“I know, Bits. I can tell.”

Bitty tries to be comforted by the fact Jack is touching him, but there’s still something heavy at the pit of his spine eating at him. “Are you mad?”

“No, God, no. I’m sad it was so scary for you to tell me, but I’d never be angry about this.”

Bitty leans into Jack’s touch. “It’s not… weird?”

Jack takes a moment, his mouth moving from side to side. “It’s new, maybe. But I fell in love with you, Bitty, not with the idea of you. You, as a person. You, with your little shorts and your twirls on the ice. The way you say my name after I kiss you, like you can’t believe it’s really happening.” Jack strokes Bitty’s cheek. “I love everything about you. Some days it feels like I couldn’t love you anymore than I do, and you’ll bake Chowder some lemon bars because he got another C, or you’ll dance around the kitchen to Beyonce, and I’ll just feel this… this _pull_ , almost. And then I love you even more than I did before.”

“Jack,” Bitty says softly, because he has to say something.

“I think I could love you forever, Bits.”

Jack’s lips are chapped when they press against his, but Bitty doesn’t care. All he can feel is Jack, all around him.

They break apart a little while later, but Jack moves to sit on the bed next to him, curled around Bitty. They talk about the game - he can’t believe Jack left, just like that, but he can’t help the flutter in his chest when Jack says he was doing something more important.

They don’t talk about the sports bra or about any of it, and Bitty thinks maybe they don’t really have to. Maybe he can just be Bitty, and Jack can just be Jack, and they can love each other more than they thought possible, and that’s all they need.

Jack puts on some music once their voices start to get hoarse. He sighs when _Halo_ comes on Bitty’s shuffle, but he doesn’t change it.

Bitty’s eyes roam Jack’s face. He remembers first meeting Jack, the instant silly crush he’d had. He’d been so desperate to please Jack, desperate to prove himself and show everyone he could do it. There had been days he’d bake just to get away from his mind, and seeing Jack smile as he ate pie that definitely wasn’t on his diet plan had helped Bitty feel worth something. Jack isn’t perfect, but he’s close. He’s kind and strong and he loves Bitty to the ends of the Earth and back, and Bitty never wants to let him go.

Bitty shifts so he’s looking into Jack’s eyes.

“This song must have been written about you.”

Jack laughs a little. “I’m sure.”

Bitty smiles, can feel the tenderness of it spread across his face. “Every song is about you, now.”

“Dork,” Jack says, but it’d be more convincing if his eyes weren’t the softest Bitty’s ever seen them.

They listen for a minute more, just staring at each other, then Jack laughs.

“This is making me think of something weird your mom said earlier.”

Bitty can only imagine. “Oh?”

“Yeah, first she said ‘the butterfly moment’, then she got all quiet for a minute, then she said to tell you to remember your wings are beautiful.”

Happiness feels like a living thing inside him, pure and perfect.

Jack just shakes his head when he looks at the serene smile on Bitty’s face, at the liquid joy pushing at his eyelids. “Of course you’d cry at that, Bittle.”

Bitty just smiles harder, if it’s possible. He bumps Jack’s nose with his own. “But you love me?”

“Yeah, Bitty,” Jack rests their foreheads together, cups Bitty’s cheek in his rough palm. “I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. inspired by [this amazing art of Bitty in a binder](http://littlestpersimmon.tumblr.com/post/146785206733/can-you-please-draw-bitty-in-that-shirt-he-stole) by [littlestpersimmon](http://littlestpersimmon.tumblr.com). 
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](http://www.lellabeth.tumblr.com)?


End file.
